Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen
ARTIST / FILMMAKER
Europa
(2014)
Pigment print on Tirage Baryté (Ed. of 5)
This photograph was taken in the summer of 2014 in Pizzo Calabro, southern Italy, where I spent a month creating 48 sculptures — reminiscent of human forms wrapped in blankets. They were suspended from a raft in the Mediterranean to develop a patina of sea organisms. The intention was to retrieve them, dry them, and later exhibit them.
A storm ravaged the installation. The sculptures were lost. This event became the starting point of my award-winning installation End of Dreams.
Above the waterline, locals used the raft as a platform to sunbathe, unaware of the submerged figures below.
In Greek mythology, Europa is carried safely across the sea. In today’s Mediterranean, not all who cross are delivered. Many drown.
The image holds this dissonance — leisure resting above what Europe would rather not see.
